Adoration of the Magi, miniature from the Hours of Louis Quarré

Title

Adoration of the Magi, miniature from the Hours of Louis Quarré

Shelfmark

MS. Douce 311 adds. 2

Place of origin

Flemish

Date

1490s

Language

No linguistic content

Contents

Form

leaf

Support

parchment

Physical extent

1 leaf

Decoration

Full-page miniature, attributed to the workshop of the Master of the Prayer Book of Maximilian, who is likely to be identified with Alexander Bening (died 1519).

Binding

Framed and mounted on red velvet.

Acquisition

Bodleian Library: purchased in 2022 through a Christie’s private treaty sale with the support of Art Fund, the Friends of the Bodleian, and the Friends of the National Libraries.

Provenance

Louis Quarré (died 1519), seigneur de la Haye en Hainaut: his overpainted coats of arms (MS. Douce 311, fols. 122v, 130r). One of the escutcheons accompanies a commemoration of St Barbara (fol. 119r), reflecting his marriage to Barbara Croesinck (died 1531).

Dominique Vivant, baron Denon (1747–1825): according to the Williams sale catalogue, This most splendid Book of Offices is known as the celebrated Missal belonging to the Baron Denon, late President of the French Institute, who possessed greater advantages than any other person of securing articles of Vertu of the choicest description, from the unlimited confidence placed in him by Bonaparte, in selecting and securing works of art for the National Museum. […] It is undoubtedly one of the most sumptuous Missals ever offered to the public, and was considered by the Baron as one of the gems in his collection. This was presumably before 1818, when a description of a handful of manuscripts still in his collection does not show any that match the Quarré Hours: Thomas F. Dibdin, A Bibliographical, Antiquarian and Picturesque Tour in France and Germany (London: Shakspeare Press, 1821), 2:454. Sold to:

Robert Heathcote (died 1823): according to the Williams catalogue, purchased from [Denon] by the late Robert Heathcote, esq. a gentleman well known for his distinguished taste. As-Vijvers (¶ 65) notes that Heathcote purchased another book of hours at Paris in 1816. Heathcote sold both books and art from 1802 onwards: A catalogue of a magnificent, truly superbe, and valuable collection of Italian, French, Flemish and Dutch pictures (London: Philips, 1805); Repertorium bibliographicum; or, Some account of the most celebrated British libraries (London: Clarke, 1819), 470–73; Seymour de Ricci, English Collectors of Books and Manuscripts (1530–1930) (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1930), 99. Heathcote sold some books through an intermediary, Mr Farmer: David Rogers, Francis Douce’s Manuscripts: Some Hitherto Unrecognised Provenances, in Studies in the Book Trade in Honour of Graham Pollard, ed. Richard W. Hunt, Ian G. Philip, and Richard J. Roberts (Oxford: Oxford Bibliographical Society, 1975), 334.

Theodore Williams (1785–1875), vicar of Hendon: it is unclear whether the missing miniatures were still in the volume when he purchased it. Williams, born in Jamaica, was also an avid cactus collector. Sale of his library, A catalogue of the library of the Rev. Theodore Williams […] which will be sold by auction, by Messrs. Stewart, Wheatley, and Adlard (London: Adlard, 1827), lot 1030 (p. 104), 24 April 1827. The description mentions twelve Large Paintings, showing that the missing miniatures had been removed by this point.

Charles Scarisbrick (1801–1860), high sheriff of Scarisbrick Hall and Wrightington, Lancashire, whose collection was dispersed in 1861: his mark on recto (Lugt no. 522).

Jean-François Gigoux (1806–1894), French painter, lithographer, illustrator and collector: his mark on recto (Lugt no. 1164).

Sotheby's, 11 December 1972, lot 9. Sold to:

Bernard H. Breslauer (1918–2004), published in Voelke and Wieck, Bernard H. Breslauer Collection, 1992–93, pp. 98–99, no. 21.

Sold at Christie’s New York, 2005 and by Sam Fogg; sold to:

Roger De Kesel (1922–2023); sold to: